I use both X-paricles and turbulence FD for smoke and fire but it seems like Particles could possibly be used alone with this coming release. I was not happy with the initial smoke and fire effects so I ma very curious to see some tutorials and animations from this new version soon. I am guessing it will work with version 16 of C4D, otherwise I will be very disappointed!

I noticed that they included OpenVDB....but I would assume that requires Cycles to render. Not sure because all Cycles 4D has on their features page is that it supports volumes. I wonder if they will offer more than their standard 15% discount on Cycles 4D for existing XP license holders given that some of the new features of XP4 may require it. If they bundle the XP4 upgrade with Cycles at a pretty good discount, I would definitely go for that.

December is still a long way off so it is quite understandable that they don't have a more detailed new feature list or animations (the 5 pictures really don't do it justice). Hopefully more information will be available in the October (like will Cycles be required to render OpenVDB) when existing users get their upgrade letters.

Where is Mike, Dave or Steve? They must be too busy beta testing as one of them would have jumped onto this thread by now and given us just a bit more news. Again, 5 simple pictures and some pricing information is just too little information given that a new XP release is a pretty significant event to the community.

October can't come fast enough and December just seems like a lifetime away. Hmmm....while we all beat on MAXON for advanced news on the latest release, maybe they are doing us a favor by not telling us anything.

Dave

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We will be showing XP4 at IBC, the current teaser is for newsletter subscribers. Full information, images, videos and sneak peaks will be along from October onwards. This is our biggest XP release, it has been a major development investment.

We will be showing XP4 at IBC, the current teaser is for newsletter subscribers. Full information, images, videos and sneak peaks will be along from October onwards. This is our biggest XP release, it has been a major development investment.

We will be showing XP4 at IBC, the current teaser is for newsletter subscribers. Full information, images, videos and sneak peaks will be along from October onwards. This is our biggest XP release, it has been a major development investment.

Just read the newsletter. Based on the information provided, each of the features mentioned really could be a complete new plugin by themselves. I have no idea how they could integrate all that into one program architecture - so that in itself is impressive. Plus I get the sense that everything plays together. Not sure if there is the equivalent of Maya's n-systems where fluid sim's drive a cloth sim, but you do get that impression reading the press-blurb. My brain just hurts thinking about how much work they put into this....and then it hurts again thinking about how they have to test it as well (think of the combinations).

I have always been impressed with this team....and that hasn't changed.

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Just read the newsletter. Based on the information provided, each of the features mentioned really could be a complete new plugin by themselves. I have no idea how they could integrate all that into one program architecture - so that in itself is impressive. Plus I get the sense that everything plays together. Not sure if there is the equivalent of Maya's n-systems where fluid sim's drive a cloth sim, but you do get that impression reading the press-blurb. My brain just hurts thinking about how much work they put into this....and then it hurts again thinking about how they have to test it as well (think of the combinations).

I have always been impressed with this team....and that hasn't changed.

I don't know that I'd go that far (or selfishly speaking, even vaguely suggest the idea) but it is a very impressive list for one upgrade. That we can say unequivocally. But in general other than making an argument that the cloth stuff could be separate, the rest of the concepts and workflows are closely related in a lot of ways.

The inclusion of all makes this a tremendously versatile product and a great investment for anyone who wants to learn a single particle system environment for all uses (a lot of people want that simplicity). So including all of them is a strong competitive move. They've one-upped everyone else in the market for the time being. And that's good for everyone. Because even if you chose another system, they're going to be forced to play ball too.